June 19th, 4 to 6 1/2, P. M.SITTING alone by the creeksolitude here, but the scene bright and vivid enoughthe sun shining, and quite a fresh wind blowing (some heavy showers last night,) the grass and trees looking their bestthe clare-obscure of different greens, shadows, half-shadows, and the dappling glimpses of the water, through recessesthe wild flageolet-note of a quail near bythe just-heard fretting of some hylas down there in the pondcrows cawing in the distancea drove of young hogs rooting in soft ground near the oak under which I sitsome come sniffing near me, and then scamper away, with grunts. And still the clear notes of the quailthe quiver of leaf-shadows over the paper as I writethe sky aloft, with white clouds, and the sun well declining to the westthe swift darting of many sand-swallows coming and going, their holes in a neighboring marl-bankthe odor of the cedar oak, so palpable, as evening approachesperfume, color, the bronze-and-gold of nearly ripend wheatclover-fields, with honey-scentthe well-up maize, with long and rustling leavesthe great patches of thriving potatoes, dusky green, fleckd all over with white blossomsthe old, warty, venerable oak above meand ever, mixd with the dual notes of the quail, the soughing of the wind through some near-by pines.

As I rise for return, I linger long to a delicious song-epilogue (is it the hermit-thrush?) from some bushy recess off there in the swamp, repeated leisurely and pensively over and over again. This, to the circle-gambols of the swallows flying by dozens in concentric rings in the last rays of sunset, like flashes of some airy wheel.